"Simony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... monastery. Gregory VI, however, gave the council cause to doubt its competence to judge him. Gregory, who was an upright man, or one at least conscious of good intentions, consented publicly to describe the circumstances of his elevation, and was thereby forced to condemn himself as guilty of simony and unworthy of the papal office. He quietly laid down the insignia of the papacy, and his renunciation did him honor. Henry, with the bishops and the margrave Boniface, immediately started for the city, which did not shut its gates against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... curates, and the commendams of bishops. The petitioners prayed, that whereas a great number both of regulars and seculars who were presumptuous and ignorant were ordained, a decree might be passed that all before ordination should be strictly examined; and that a remedy should be provided against simony.[61] They petitioned, also, that foreigners who could not speak English should have no cures in England; and they complained of the practice of patrons exacting from the priests whom they nominated to a benefice a pledge that they would not sue for ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... Roman Republic,—God forgive me for saying so! Does the Most Christian King of France know that the man who pretends to rule in the name of Christ is not a believer in the Christian religion,—that he does not believe even in a God,—that he obtained the holy seat by simony,—that he uses all its power to enrich a brood of children whose lives are so indecent that it is a shame to modest lips even to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... as every body knows they did, then the tother of that—getting them back again—must be right. But you needn't tell any body what I've said, mistress; for they might, perhaps, have Bill Piper and me up, and try to make barglary out of it—or simony, I don't know but the law folks would call it—the breaking into a log-barn. But hush! Somebody's coming. It ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... by an iron railing. It was customary for the chapter to lease at a handsome price to seignorial families, and even to rich burghers, the right to be present at the services, themselves and their servants exclusively, in the various lateral chapels of the long side-aisles of the cathedral. This simony is in practice to the present day. A woman had her chapel as she now has her opera-box. The families who hired these privileged places were required to decorate the altar of the chapel thus conceded to ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... together with the fact that he quotes one of the stage directions ('enter Balsebub with a Berde') seems to point to the fact that he actually had the volume in his hands. It concerned the trial of Simony and Avarice, with the Devil as Judge. 'The characters are a Necromancer or Conjurer, the Devil, a Notary Public, Simonie, and Philargyria or Avarice. . . . There is no sort of propriety in calling this play the Necromancer: ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Woodstock on Palm Sunday. The piece is now lost; but a copy was seen by Warton, who gave an account of it. As the matter is very curious, I must add a few of its points. The persons are a Conjurer, the Devil, a Notary Public, Simony, and Avarice. The plot is the trial of Simony and Avarice, the Devil being the judge, and the Notary serving as assessor. The Conjurer has little to do but open the subject, evoke the Devil, and summon the court. The prisoners are found guilty, and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... preferments: money in large quantities was carried out of the realm from the proceeds of these offices, and it was necessary to insist emphatically that the papal nominations should cease. They were made in violation of the law, and were conducted with simony so flagrant that English benefices were sold in the papal courts to any person who would pay for them, whether an Englishman or a stranger. It was therefore decreed that the elections to bishopricks should be ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... from Parnassus or The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Johns Colledge ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... nor had given, Rome to the Popes, and that they had no right to govern there. He backed up this terrible indictment by a round attack upon the clergy, its general corruption and its practices of simony; and as a result he fell into the hands of the Inquisition. There it might have gone very ill with him but that King Alfonso rescued him from the clutches of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... naturally short of money. He relied on two principal methods for replenishing his coffers. One was the public sale of places about the Court at Rome, each of which had its well-known price.[1] Benefices were disposed of with rather more reserve and privacy, for simony had not yet come to be considered venial. Yet it was notorious that Sixtus held no privilege within his pontifical control on which he was not willing to raise money: 'Our churches, priests, altars, sacred rites, our prayers, our heaven, our very God, are purchasable!' exclaims a scholar ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... his will, he led a life of anguish, mourning for the lost peace of his cloister; but he fought none the less with incredible energy against the inroads of the Barbarians, the heresies of Africa, the intrigues of Byzantium, and the Simony of ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... his archbishopric, sent missionaries to Finland, Greenland and the Orkney Islands, and aimed at making Bremen a patriarchal see for northern Europe, with twelve suffragan bishoprics. He consolidated and increased the estates of the church, exercised the powers of a count, denounced simony and initiated financial reforms. The presence of this powerful and active personality, who was moreover a close friend of the emperor, was greatly resented by the Saxon duke, Bernard II., who regarded him as a spy sent by Henry into Saxony. Adalbert, who wished to free his lands entirely from the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more honor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. [51] Yet the negotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of expression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which had escaped the dangers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... treatise 'On the Church,' and a pamphlet entitled 'The Six Errors;' both of which he caused to be fixed on the walls and gates of the chapel of Bethlehem. Both were directed against indulgences, against the abuse of excommunication, simony, transubstantiation, and the like; and, above all, against the unlimited obedience required by the see of Rome; maintaining that the Scriptures presented the only rule of faith ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... of two early dramas, which exhibit Kemp in propria persona, must necessarily form a portion of the present essay. The Retvrne from Pernassvs: Or The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Johns Colledge in Cambridge, 1606,[x:1] 4to. furnishes ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... three crimes: the holding of the see of Winchester, together with that of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall of Robert his predecessor; and the having received his own pall from Benedict IX., who was afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion into the papacy [g]. These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been a practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected to a higher penalty than a ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... intruded into his profession, I will tell him in brief, I do not otherwise by them, than they do by us. If it be for their advantage, I know many of their sect which have taken orders, in hope of a benefice, 'tis a common transition, and why may not a melancholy divine, that can get nothing but by simony, profess physic? Drusianus an Italian (Crusianus, but corruptly, Trithemius calls him) [164]"because he was not fortunate in his practice, forsook his profession, and writ afterwards in divinity." Marcilius Ficinus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... scarcely had he completed the formalities of etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the hope of directing at the will of his ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the one all-absorbing truth in the universe? How should such a fellow as I"—he went on, growing scornful at himself in the presence of the truth—"judge of its sacred probabilities? or, having led such a life of simony, be heard when he declares that such a pretended message from God to men seems too good to be true? The things therein contained I declare good, yet went not and did them. Therefore am I altogether out of court, and must not be heard in ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... us, the said apostolical commissary-general, his holiness concedes that we may be able to dispense and compound for any irregularity whatsoever, provided it shall not arise out of any wilful homicide, simony, apostasy from the faith, heresy, or bad inception of orders; and in like manner to absolve those who shall have contracted matrimony, there being impediment of secret affinity, arising from previous illicit copulation, one of the ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... by the ninth canon in the council of Poictiers, (centy. xi.) ordained "That the sub-deacons, deacons, and priests, shall have no concubine, or any other suspicious women in their houses; and that all those who shall wittingly hear the mass of a priest that keeps a concubine, or is guilty of simony, shall ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... or swore a profane oath; took a hand at cards; or ridiculed the mysteries, the experiences, the circumspect professor of the Christian faith, is almost certain to have the presentation: perhaps he covenanted for it as part of his wages. For what simony, sacrilege, and deceitful perjury, with respect to ordination vows, patronage opens a door, he that runs may read. Shocked with the view, let ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... For you he sweats and labours at the laws, Takes God to witness he affects your cause, And lies to every lord in every thing, Like a king's favourite—or like a king. These are the talents that adorn them all, From wicked waters even to godly * * Not more of simony beneath black gowns, Nor more of bastardy in heirs to crowns. In shillings and in pence at first they deal; And steal so little, few perceive they steal; Till, like the sea, they compass all the land, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... May be by man employ'd on one, whose trust He wins, or on another who withholds Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes. Whence in the second circle have their nest Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries, Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce To lust, or set their honesty at pawn, With such vile scum as these. The other way Forgets both Nature's general love, and that Which thereto added afterwards gives birth To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle, Point of the universe, dread ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... well-known answer was not without effect on him, but it was only temporary, for he afterwards appeared in Rome and continued to impose upon the people so as to persuade them to believe him as an incarnation of the Most High. Hence Simony, the sin of making gain by the buying or selling of spiritual privileges for one's ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... indolent habit inherited from his father a depraved and vicious nature. After a regency of eight years he became king at the age of fifteen, and lived to defile his youth and dishonour his manhood by debauchery and adultery, simony and brigandage. Early in his career he followed the evil counsels of his provost Etienne, and purposed the spoliation of the treasury of St. Germain des Pres to pay for his dissolute pleasures. "As the sacrilegious pair," says the chronicler, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the body of the Church, and all commands of this Church are to be obeyed. Of course, Hus and his followers could not accept such monstrously wicked teaching. On the contrary, Hus held it the duty of kings to restrain the wickedness of the clergy and root out simony. ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann
... from Rome all hot," and extolling the virtues of their relics and the power of their indulgences with the eloquence of a quack vending his nostrums. Bishops held civil offices under the king, and priests acted as stewards in great men's houses. Simony possessed the Church, and the ministers of religion again ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... October 1671 died Alexander,[608] Lord Halkerton, at his oune house, of the age of 77. He entered to his place in Session by simony, or rather committendo crimen ambitus, for he payed to my Lord Balmanno 7000 merks (a great soume at that tyme when their salaries ware small), to dimit in his favors, and by my Lord Traquaires moyen, then Threasurer whosse creature ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... in no favor at Rome; they had refused to accept a Norman Primate appointed by Edward; and Stigand, their chosen Archbishop, was at present suspended by the Court of Rome, for having obtained his office by simony: the whole Anglo-Saxon Church was reported to be in a very bad and corrupt state, and besides, Rome had never enjoyed the power and influence there that the Normans had permitted her. Lanfranc, Abbot, of St. Stephens, at Caen, and one of the persons most highly esteemed by William, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tracts he said, speaking of the pope and his collectors: "They draw out of our land poor men's livelihood, and many thousand marks, by the year, of the king's money, for sacraments and spiritual things, that is cursed heresy of simony, and maketh all Christendom assent and maintain this heresy. And certes though our realm had a huge hill of gold, and never other man took thereof but only this proud worldly priest's collector, by process of time this hill must be spended; ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... his monastery, and that he built of timber. Nor was he alone, for he had found there already two hermits, who agreed to join him; so under the rule of St. Benedict the Vallombrosan Order was founded.[133] Of S. Giovanni's work in Florence, of his fight with Simony and Nicolaitanism, this is no place to speak. He became the hero of that country; yet such was his humility that he never proceeded further than minor orders, and, though Abbot of Vallombrosa, was never a priest. He founded many houses, S. Salvi among them, while his ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... an expensive lot. The fact is, Mr. Bolton, that the price is raised so high on United States Senator now, that it affects the whole market; you can't get any public improvement through on reasonable terms. Simony is what I call it, Simony," repeated Mr. Bigler, as if he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... toleration and consideration which he did not always extend to schismatics, heretics, and heathen. He seems to have reserved his most violent language for Lombards and Patriarchs of Constantinople. He called worldly or negligent bishops to order, and in particular took vigorous measures to root out simony, which was very prevalent. He sent Augustine and his companions to England, and wrote them letters of exhortation and instruction; he found time to send them also church furniture, vessels and vestments, and ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt
... was only one sin which excited my curiosity and made me feel uneasy. I was afraid that I might have been guilty of it unawares. I mustered up courage enough, one day, to ask my confessor what was meant by the phrase: "To be guilty of simony in the collation of benefices." The good priest reassured me and told me that I could not ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Simony was not unknown in those times; and the clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron, named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400 Folles. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... our ears, being at once publicly notorious and brought before us upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you, the abbot afore-mentioned, have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, and possessions of the said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... a part in the Inferno appearing not only in the demons taken from classical legend and deformed into caricatures, but also in the punishment of crimes, v.g. simony and malfeasance in public office, regarded by our poet as malicious in themselves and grotesque ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... after them—great lubbers and long that were loth to work: friars glossing the Gospel for their own profit; pardoners cheating the people with relics and indulgences; parish priests who forsook their parishes—that had been poor since the pestilence time—and went to London to sing there for simony; bishops, archbishops, and deacons, who got themselves fat clerkships in the Exchequer, or King's Bench; in short, all manner of lazy and corrupt ecclesiastics. A lady, who represents holy Church, then appears to ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... clear that, at that time, a very bitter feud must have raged between Jonson and Shakspere; for it is scarcely to be believed that it would have been brought on the stage had a larger public not been deeply interested in the controversy. 'The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony,' [1] is the title of the play, mentioned several times before, in which this controversy is referred to in clear words. Philomusus and Studioso, two poor scholars who in vain had sought to pursue their calling as medical men, resolve upon going to the more profitable stage. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... do so. This casket is loaded with your sins; 'tis the cargo of rapines, simony, and extortions; the iniquity of thirty years ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... "Nam fuit primus in cujus curia palam committeretur Simonia per suos attinentes. Quapropter multum ditavit eos possessionibus, pecuniis et castellis, super onmes Romanos": "For he was the first at whose court Simony was openly committed in favor of his adherents. Whereby he greatly enriched them with possessions, money, and strongholds, above all the Romans." "Sed quod Clerici capiunt raro dimittunt": "What the clergy have once laid hands on, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... for weeks, Brother Ambrose had witnessed and endured the false piety of the man. How he'd ever got admitted to the order in the first place beat all supposition. It must have been his sanctimonious apple-cheeks or (Heaven forbid such simony), some rich relative greased the palm of the ...
— G-r-r-r...! • Roger Arcot
... Kirchenrechts. The relation of the vicariate to the papacy and also to the royal power is indicated by the fact that the pallium is given in response to the request of the king. The condition of the church under Childebert is also shown; see 98 for canons bearing on simony and irregularities ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... hear tell of it. But when he saith that the Pope should have no right nor power in this realm of England, that is but what the Church of England hath alway held: Bishop Grosteste did as fervently abhor the Pope's power—"Egyptian bondage" was his word for it. Much has this Father also to say against simony: and he would have no private confession to a priest (verily, this would I gladly see abolished), nor indulgences, nor letters of fraternity, nor pilgrimages, nor guilds: and he sets his face against the new fashion of singing ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... letter of Pelagius was not regarded as satisfactory. It was long before the Churches entered into communion with him; and even to the last, the northern sees of Italy refused. He ruled, unquietly enough, for four years; and died, leaving a memory free at least from simony, and honoured as a ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... old cathedral of St. Paul, walks were laid out for merchants, as in the Royal Exchange. Thus, "the south alley for usurye, and poperye; the north for simony and the horse fair; in the middest for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murthers, conspiracies; and the font for ordinary paiements of money, are so well knowne to all menne as the beggar ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... to the ecclesiastical tribunals, by freeing the whole body of the clergy from the jurisdiction of the temporal courts, in criminal as well as civil cases. Gradually the bishops acquired the right to try all cases relating to marriage, trusts, perjury, simony, or concerning widows, orphans, or crusaders, on the ground that such cases had to do with religion. Even the right to try all criminal cases was claimed on the ground that all crime is sin, and hence can properly be dealt with only ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... dinner; but the more hungry starvelings generally looked upon it as an immediate call to a benefice; and he that could but write an answer, whatsoever it were, took it for the most dexterous, cheap, and legal way of simony. As is usual on these occasions, there arose no small competition and mutiny ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... that, as compared with our times, these sums represent a revenue of a hundred thousand, and a capital of two millions and a half in addition, it may be safely asserted that the prelate had at least made a good beginning. Besides his regular income, moreover, he had handsome receipts from that simony which was reduced to a system, and which gave him a liberal profit, generally in the shape of an annuity, upon every benefice which he conferred. He was, however, by no means satisfied. His appetite was as boundless as the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... flock had to keep aloof from the shepherd, and the unsuspicious Fathers of the Western Councils trusted and followed some consecrated sophist from Greece or Syria. It was the case in those passages of medieval history when simony resisted the Supreme Pontiff, or when heresy lurked in Universities. It was a longer and more tedious trial, while the controversies lasted with the Monophysites of old, and with the Jansenists in modern times. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... for our warning, as well as specimen graces for our emulation. One such sin, so subtle, so dangerous, and so constantly recurring in Christian history, having taken the name of its first author and being called "simony," has been handed down from generation to generation. "Because thou hast thought that the gift of God can be purchased with money" is the solemn indictment against one who had purposed to buy the power of the Holy Ghost. ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... souls of the race on which it inflicts them. Is your Christianity, then, he would say, a respecter of persons, and does it condone the sin because the sinner can contribute to your coffers? Was there ever a simony like this,—that does not sell, but withholds, the gift of God for ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... year, 400, St. Chrysostom held a council of bishops in Constantinople; one of whom had preferred a complaint against his metropolitan Antoninus, the archbishop of Ephesus, which consisted of several heads, but that chiefly insisted on was simony.[27] All our saint's endeavors to discuss this affair being frustrated by the distance of places, he found it necessary, at the solicitation of the clergy and people of Ephesus, to go in person to that city, though the severity of the winter season, and the ill ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler |
